Page 67 of Easy, Tiger

"How long do you think it'll take him to track us here?" Nico asks, wearing a mild curiosity, like he's timing an experiment. "My money's on three hours, maybe four. Tigers are excellent trackers, but even they need time to follow a trail."

"He won't come alone."

"I'm counting on it. The more of them I can document, the better my evidence becomes." He gestures toward camera equipment arranged around the clearing. "This is going to be the most important scientific footage since the moon landing."

The casual way he discusses destroying lives makes my skin crawl. But his confidence also lays bare something crucial—he expects Nolan to charge in recklessly, driven by protective instincts rather than tactical thinking.

I need to find a way to warn him that this is a trap disguised as a rescue mission. My eyes rapidly inventory the tent, searching for anything useful. That radio bank sits close enough that I might reach it if I can find even thirty seconds unwatched, close enough that I've already memorized where the power switch is. Nico's confidence is his weakness. He's so confident of his trap that he hasn't considered his prisoner might still have moves left to make.

Filing it all away, I wait for my chance.

24

NOLAN

The sun has long since vanished behind the pines when I finally abandon the pretense that Halsey might simply be running late. She promised to return by four, and my clock reads past six. Pitch black has descended over the mountain, and the approaching storm brings an absolute, frigid darkness. Every instinct I've spent months learning to trust screams that something has gone wrong.

Taking the trail to the fire lookout at a pace that would leave most humans gasping, my heart pounds for reasons born entirely of panic rather than exertion. The harsh tang hits me before I reach the clearing: gunpowder and synthetic fabric. Underneath it is the metallic tang of fear that clings to a place where something violent has happened.

The lookout deck tells the story in scattered evidence. Halsey's easel lies toppled, sketches scattered across weathered planks. Her pencil case sits open beside an overturned water bottle, supplies spilled in a pattern too sudden to be orderly packing.

Kneeling beside the fragments of her phone, I inspect the plastic and glass ground into the wooden boards with unrelenting force. The screen reflects fractured pieces of the moon, each shard catching the dying light like accusation.

But it's the torn sketch page wedged beneath the trailhead marker that makes my stomach plummet. Folded small and precise, weighted down with a pebble so the wind couldn't claim it—exactly how I taught her to leave emergency markers during our wilderness training sessions.

A sharp chill runs through my fingers as I unfold the paper. It's a quick study of a pine branch, meaningless to anyone else. To me, it's a message written in our private language: I'm alive and fighting back.

That bastard has my mate. A sickening wave of guilt slams into me—I should have sent a scout with her. I shouldn't have let her go alone. But I force the thought down as quickly as it rises. Halsey asked for my trust. She wanted a partnership built on freedom, and I promised to treat her as an equal.

She proved she deserved that trust. Sprinting down the trail, I follow signs that become clearer with every step. A strip of flannel caught on broken bark at the first switchback. Three stones kicked off the path pointing north, two pointing east—Owen's emergency code for "taken by force, heading northeast." A sapling snapped at eye level, the break fresh enough that sap beads along the wound.

She's been leaving breadcrumbs for me to follow, trusting that I'll recognize what she's learned, trusting that I'll come.

Every instinct I own screams at me to keep running this trail alone, to close the distance and tear him apart with my bare hands. But Halsey deliberately left a trail of coded signs so I could protect every advantage she bought me instead of wasting them on a reckless solo charge. She built me a map. The least I owe her is using it properly, with backup, with a plan, exactly how she'd want me to.

Turning back toward the enclave instead of venturing forward alone, I cover the distance at a dead sprint. I reach the hidden entrance in record time, barging through the camouflaged door hard enough to rattle the frame. Owen breaks away from a tactical map spread across the main table, his expression evolving from mild curiosity to sharp alarm as he takes in my face.

"Halsey's been taken."

The words land like gunshots in the room. Sadie drops her coffee mug, ceramic shattering against the stone floor. My father rises from his chair with the fluid grace that signifies he's already entering a combat mindset.

"When?" Owen's question cuts straight to operational details.

"Sometime this afternoon. She left trail markers—the hunter forced her northeast from the fire lookout." I spread the torn sketch page on the table beside Owen's map. "She's alive and thinking tactically, but he's had hours to move her."

Sadie reviews the topographical lines, calculating distances and terrain difficulty. "Could be anywhere in a fifty-square-mile radius by now. That's a lot of ground to cover before dark."

"Not if we split up and use every advantage we have." I mark areas on the map where the terrain would slow down someone traveling with a captive. "He's human. He'll stick to established trails, avoid the steepest climbs, and need to rest more frequently than we do."

"What's the engagement protocol?" Dad asks, jerking his chin toward the weapons locker.

"There is no protocol. This bastard has been hunting us for months, and now he's taken the woman I love." Abandoning every diplomatic instinct I've built as a leader, I lay the unvarnished truth out on the table. "We find him, we end this, and we bring Halsey home."

"Nolan." Owen's voice projects the authority of decades spent keeping our people safe. "If we move in force, if we expose what we are to rescue one human⁠—"

"She's far more than merely one human." My tone is harsh, but I don't soften it. "Having a safe escape route when every instinct told her to run was her first choice, followed by choosing us the moment she learned the truth. She has earned our protection."

"And if this is a trap designed to draw us out?"